Announcements – Page 37 – Lithuanian Jewish Community

Order Matzo by Internet

This year again the Lithuanian Jewish Community is asking members to order matzo via internet with home delivery. The cost for one one-kilogram box of matzo is six euros. The LJC is partially subsidizing delivery costs. This is only being offered in Vilnius for the time being and orders will be taken till March 25.

How to Order and Pay

1. Fill out the form at https://forms.gle/wRSoZ1Sf4kvVPxFj7
2. Open your internet banking profile.
3. Transfer funds to the Lithuanian Jewish Community at account number LT09 7044 0600 0090 7953 to the amount of matzo you wish to purchase.

You must indicate in the payment field the information we need to deliver the matzo to you, namely, your name and surname, exact postal address, telephone number, email address and the exact number of boxes you are ordering.

2021-03-152021-04-01

Virtual Sabbath

You’re invited to a virtual Sabbath celebration featuring a lecture by Viljamas Žitkauskas called “Differences and Shared Features of Branches of Judaism: Orthodox, Conservative, Modern, Progressive,” followed by havdalah, all starting at 7:00 P.M. on Friday, March 12. Registration required: https://forms.gle/P4tiLVUndP1NjKUe7

2021-03-12

Trans-Atlantic Dialogues II: Teaching the Holocaust in Challenging Times

U.S. Department of State | Thursday, March 18, 2021 | 11:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. EDT

The State Department’s Special Envoy for Holocaust Issues cordially invites you to a webinar on the challenges European and American educators face in teaching about the Holocaust to a new generation of learners. Holocaust educators will compare educational landscapes, discuss best practices and areas for cooperation, and speak to the challenges presented by rising anti-Semitism worldwide as well as the greater reliance on virtual schooling in a (post)-COVID world.

Please register by completing the form below.

This Zoom webinar will be in English. Participants will have an opportunity to submit questions in writing during the webinar or in advance by email to: SEHI-EVENTS@state.gov. This invitation may be shared with trusted colleagues and friends.

Featuring:

2021-03-092021-03-22

Invitation to Celebrate Sabbath with Beit Luria Progressive Shul Rabbi Julia Margolis

Shalom haverim! The Lithuanian Jewish Community invites you to usher in the Sabbath together at 6:00 P.M. on March 5 with a virtual meeting with Rabbi Julia Margolis of the Beit Luria Progressive Shul in Johannesburg, South Africa. The Sabbath event will be held in English. Please register at the link below to receive Zoom room credentials.

Registration: https://forms.gle/cn5KCv3mLdb1c4Z36

2021-03-052021-03-09

One Hundred and Ten Years of Fighting for Women’s Rights and Peace

Now 110 years have passed since German socialist Klara Zetkin proposed setting aside one day per year for women around the world to talk about their rights. The first such day happened in 1911. According to reports from the time, crowds of people in Austria, Denmark, Germany and Switzerland took to the streets to demand for women the right to study, vote and work. On March 8 two years later, on the eve of World War I, women marched for peace.

The Lithuanian Jewish Community is marking this anniversary of the struggle for women’s rights with a virtual meeting with female leaders of different ages and cultural backgrounds. Participants will include Svetlana Novopolskaja, director of the Roma Social Center; a representative from the Lithuanian Human Rights Center; Natalja Cheifec, teacher of Judaic and Jewish tradition as well as Choral Synagogue guide; and others.

The meeting will be held mainly in Lithuanian and broadcast live on youtube March 8.

2021-03-042021-03-10

Sabbath Discussion: Zionism among the Litvaks

Dear Community members,

We invite you and your entire family to this event “Sabbath Discussion: Zionism among the Litvaks” including discussion of the Vilna Gaon, Eliezer Ben-Yehuda and Menachem Begin followed by the traditional havdalah ceremony at 6:30 P.M. on February 27. You will receive the Zoom address after registering here:

https://forms.gle/7eBa8ZuhoEq5Ckjw6

2021-02-252021-02-26

Traditional Purim Costume Contest Continues

Dear members of the Lithuanian Jewish Community,

Although this year we will celebrate Purim at home, we invite you to share moments from the holiday and to take part in the traditional Purim costume contest.

Don your carnival attire, take a snapshot and send it to zanas@sc.lzb.lt by February 28.

Your photos will be considered for awards in the following categories:

Most original costume
Best family costume
Best mask

Winners to receive valuable prizes!

2021-02-252021-02-26

Hamantash

The Bagel Shop Café will make hamantash available for Purim from February 23 to 25, made in the traditional manner with poppy seeds and raspberry jam. The cost will be 12 euros per kilogram (about 30 to 35 individual hamantashen) and smaller orders are also possible. Please reserve your pastry now or at least by February 23 so we’ll know how many to make. The Bagel Shop Café itself is closed for repairs so customers will be able to pick up their orders in the foyer at the main entrance to the Lithuanian Jewish Community in Vilnius. Pick-up will begin on February 23 and run till February 25, from 12 noon to 4:00 P.M. Payment may only be made by bank card.

Reservations: https://forms.gle/YhmP2nt82uoUALbc8

2021-02-18

LJC to Hold Virtual Sabbath with Cape Town Rabbi

The Lithuanian Jewish Community is planning to hold a virtual Sabbath celebration at 6:10 P.M. on February 19 with Rabbi Greg Alexander from the Temple Israel Synagogue in Cape Town, South Africa. Please register here to receive Zoom credentials.

2021-02-17

Internet Launch of Silvia Foti’s Book “in” Mexico City

2021-02-01

Statement by LJC Chairwoman on Recent Holocaust Denial by Lithuanian MP

You Are Quiet Again, as You Were in 1941

A comment on the silent state and the vociferous Rakutises

The Lithuanian Jewish Community, along with tens of thousands of Lithuanian Jews who were captured on the streets, locked in ghettos, marched to pits and shot and buried there, often close to their own hometowns, or shtetlakh, as Jews call them, where for centuries they had lived in common with Lithuanians–we are again guilty. Member of parliament of the Republic of Lithuania Valdas Rakutis in his commentary has said nothing new, and only repeats the mendacious and misleading narrative which has gone on for decades: We ourselves, the Jews, are guilty for the extermination of 95% of the Jews who lived in Lithuania before World War II.

I have met many such Rakutises, they always say the same thing. It is horrific that today these Rakutises also speak confidently in the parliament of the Republic of Lithuania, they are published and quoted, and again and again they blame those who were escorted by their neighbors to collection points in 1941, to synagogues, and from there to margins of forests and gravel pits, for the horror of the Holocaust.

It is said that all those who remained looked on in silence as the columns of Jewish men, women and children were marched along the streets of the towns in broad daylight. And now we have the same sort of situation: there isn’t much reaction at all to the lie of these Rakutises. The majority remain silent. There are some soft noises from his fellow party members, a few observations and speculations that maybe “Rakutis was mistaken,” but nothing even close to the precise and sharp uncompromising reaction demonstrated by the foreign embassies to Lithuania. The German, Israel and US ambassadors to Lithuania were among the first to condemn clearly and publicly Rakutis’s statement. The European Jewish Congress also responded as did the Jewish communities living abroad. The words by the Lithuanian MP didn’t slip by unnoticed by any of the Western states, where they react without excuse or compromise to open or hidden attempts to distort history and to expressions of anti-Semitism.

2021-01-292021-02-10

When No Eye-Witnesses Remain: LJC Invites Public to Internet Discussion on Holocaust

To mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the Lithuanian Jewish Community is holding an internet discussion called “When No Eye-Witnesses Remain” at 2:00 P.M. on Wednesday, January 27, at https://www.facebook.com/zydubendruomene

LJC chairwoman Faina Kukliansky, who helped initiate the virtual conference and plans to take part, said: “There are ever fewer Holocaust witnesses who can take an active part in educating society. When the last eye-witnesses die, all responsibility for preserving memory will pass to the younger generations. Memory of the Holocaust should become simply an history lesson where dates, names and locations are the most significant. It should be an eternal lesson in human moral values which moves the heart as well as the mind.”

Watch live, starting at 2:00 P.M.:

2021-01-27

Implementing the IHRA Definition of Anti-Semitism for NGO Funding

About the speakers

Prof. Gerald Steinberg is founder and president of NGO Monitor and professor emeritus at Bar Ilan University. His current research focuses on the politics of human rights, soft power and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). His book “Menachem Begin and the Israel-Egypt Peace Process: Between Ideology and Political Realism” was published in 2019.

Ellie Cohanim served as deputy special envoy to monitor and combat anti-Semitism at the U.S. Department of State. Former deputy special envoy Cohanim helped inform and carry out policies and related initiatives that aim to counter global anti-Semitism at the State Department.

Mike Whine is a senior consultant at WJC. Between 2010 and 2012 he acted as lay advisor to the Counter Terrorism Division of the Crown Prosecution Service. In September 2013 he was appointed UK member of the European Commission Against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI), a human rights agency of the Council of Europe.

Olga Deutsch is vice president at NGO Monitor where she works with elected officials around the world. Olga brings extensive experience in international politics and Europe-Israel relations, and expertise in advocacy and building effective strategies to combat delegitimization, BDS and modern anti-Semitism.

The Institute for NGO Research, 10 Yad Harutzim , Jerusalem, 9342148 Israel

2021-01-252021-01-28

More on the #MesPrisimename Campaign to Remember the Victims of the Holocaust

International Holocaust Remembrance Day will be marked around the world January 27 and the Lithuanian Jewish Community has and is inviting the people of Lithuania to join the #MesPrisimename (#WeRemember) campaign to remember the Jewish communities of Lithuania’s cities and towns exterminated in the Holocaust, the survivors and the rescuers.

“We remember the tragedy of the destruction of six million Jews of Europe every year at this time. We invite everyone–heads of state, politicians, the entire academic and education community and all the people of Lithuania–to remember on the eve of International Holocaust Remembrance Day the people who were murdered in the flames of the Holocaust. This is our shared loss, the loss of the entire country,” Lithuanian Jewish Community chairwoman Faina Kukliansky said.

“We appeal to the entire academic and education community: use the opportunity this day provides and give attention to educating young people on commemorating the victims of the Holocaust. Hold virtual meetings with older members of the Jewish communities who remember these horrific periods of history. We still have the unique opportunity to speak directly with the eye-witnesses of these events, so let’s use it,” she added.

2021-01-252021-01-28

#MesPrisimename Campaign to Mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day

The annual commemoration of International Holocaust Remembrance Day takes place on January 27, the day Auschwitz-Birkenau was liberated, and this year will mark the 76th time the United Nations’ commemorative day has been marked.

The Lithuanian Jewish Community wants to use this day to teach young people about the Holocaust and to hold virtual meetings between young people and survivors.

The LJC invites you to join the #WeRemember campaign on social media, which is called #MesPrisimename in Lithuanian. You can make a sign or inscription with either variant and photograph yourself with it, then post it with these hashtags, and send it projects@lzb.lt before January 25.

2021-01-192021-01-25

The Rebel from Žagarė Who Dared Criticize Stalin

Facts worth knowing about the Litvak poet Osip Mandelshtam

by Rūta Ribinskaitė, LJC member, for 15min.lt

As we mark the 130th anniversary of Osip Mandelshtam, the Lithuanian Jewish Community is inviting the public to take a new look at one of the most renowned poets of the Silver Age of Russian poetry. We present to readers long-forgotten and little-known facts about the phenomenal poet Osip Mandelshtam.

Mandelshtam’s family on both his mother’s and father’s side came from Lithuania. The Mandelshtam family’s roots are in northern Lithuania in the town of Žagarė. There are assertions the family settled in the town in the early 19th century.

The poet’s mother Flora Mandelshtam née Verbolvskaya was a musician and his father Hatzkel-Emil Mandelshtam belong to the first guild of merchants and was a leather tanner. The young married couple lived in Warsaw where the future poet was born on January 15, 1891, and then moved to live in St. Petersburg, Russia, in 1896 and 1897.

Full text in Lithuanian here.

2021-01-152021-01-25

Hebrew Classes

Hebrew classes resume at the Lithuanian Jewish Community January 17 and will take place on Sundays. Classes for beginners start at 11:15 A.M., 1:00 P.M. for advanced students and 2:45 P.M. for intermediate learners.

To register, send an email to ruthreches@gmail.com

2021-01-142021-01-18

LJC Celebrates Life and Work of Osip Mandelshtam on 130th Birthday

The Lithuanian Jewish Community is inviting the public to learn more about one of the best poets of Russia’s Silver Age, Osip Mandelshtam.

Join the virtual day of poetry at 2:00 P.M. on January 15 on facebook by going to https://fb.me/e/1cV0KYzFo

Speakers and critics will present new insights and little known facts in Mandelshtam’s biography and poetry. The actors Viačeslavas Lukjanovas and Larisa Kalpokaitė will read excerpts in Russian and Viktorija Verikaitė will read Lithuanian translations of Mandelshtam’s poetry.

2021-01-142021-01-15